Kewanee recovering from storm’s fury

Tuesday

Jul 1, 2014 at 7:45 PM

Mike Berry

Nearly three inches of rain in less than an hour, combined with winds that reached more than 70 mph, caused problems Monday in town and out.Downed trees and limbs, flooded streets, power outages and crop damage were all reported Tuesday after a storm late Monday afternoon swept through Kewanee and most of northern Illinois.Anderson’s Flying Service at the Kewanee Municipal Airport measured a wind gust of 71 mph at 5:45 p.m. That was enough wind to flatten corn in fields throughout the area, and to bring down limbs and trees.While there were no widespread power failures, a number of people lost power when limbs fell and disconnected their electric service.According to the National Weather Service, torrential rains dropped 2.98 inches of water in the early-evening storm and another round of wind, rain, thunder and lightning that struck a few hours later.However, many Kewaneeans reported having more than three inches of rain in their rain gauges.The weather station at Kewanee’s wastewater treatment plant recorded a total of six inches Sunday and Monday, according to Mike Rapczak, operations manager for the Kewanee Public Works Department.So Monday’s rain fell on ground that was already saturated, Rapczak said. That, plus the intensity of the rainfall, caused street flooding throughout the city.“We had water where we’ve never had it before,” he said.City crews started pumping out storm sewers at 5:30 p.m. Monday, just a few minutes after the storm began. Rapczak said they were still pumping in some areas Tuesday.The water overtaxed the city’s storm sewers, which Rapczak pointed out were installed more than a century ago and couldn’t handle the load.But Monday’s rains probably would have caused flooding if the storm sewers were new, Rapczak said. “You couldn’t even design a system that could handle that much water,” he said.Many Kewaneeans also had water in their basements after the storm, and Rapczak said some complained that sewers were backing up into their homes. But in most cases, he said, it was “hydrostatic pressure” that caused the water to get in through the foundations.“They don’t realize how much pressure water has when it’s in the ground,” he said.As bad as the storm was, Rapczak said, it could have been worse.“Can you imagine if this would have been snow?” he said.